Lambeth Council (202104328)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202104328

Lambeth Council

19 August 2021

Our approach

The Housing Ombudsman’s approach to investigating and determining complaints is to decide what is fair in all the circumstances of the case. This is set out in the Housing Act 1996 and the Housing Ombudsman Scheme (the Scheme). The Ombudsman considers the evidence and looks to see if there has been any ‘maladministration’, for example whether the landlord has failed to keep to the law, followed proper procedure, followed good practice or behaved in a reasonable and competent manner.

Both the resident and the landlord have submitted information to the Ombudsman and this has been carefully considered. Their accounts of what has happened are summarised below. This report is not an exhaustive description of all the events that have occurred in relation to this case, but an outline of the key issues as a background to the investigation’s findings.

The complaint

1. The complaint is about:
   1. The landlord’s communication to the resident about the annual gas safety check at her property.
   2. The landlord’s handling of the associated complaint.

Background and summary of events

Policies and procedures

2. The landlord’s repairs manual confirms that the landlord is legally required to carry out an annual gas safety check at the property. This also states that residents must allow access to the property for this check to be completed and, in the event of access not being granted, the landlord may obtain a court order to gain entry to the property.
3. The landlord’s complaints policy provides for a two-stage formal complaint stage with written responses due within 20 working days at stage one and no timeframe is specified at the final stage. This policy states that it will not usually consider issues at the final stage that were not raised during the first stage.

Background

4. The resident is a tenant of the landlord and the property is a flat.
5. The landlord wrote to the resident on 6 and 21 July 2020, and 3 and 28 August 2020 to request access to the property to carry out an annual gas safety check.
6. The landlord’s letter to the resident on 28 August 2020 stated that it had been made aware by its contractor that the annual gas safety check at the property had not been carried out. It stated that this was a legal requirement and if it was not completed by 14 September 2020 then it would apply to the court the following day for a warrant to enter the premises. The landlord advised that it had already booked this court date but this would not go ahead if the gas safety check was completed before this date. It also said that “99% of your neighbours allow [it] into their home” to carry out the gas safety check.
7. The resident emailed the landlord on 4 September 2020 to raise a complaint about the tone of the letter she received, which she found “disgusting”. She pointed out that she had contacted it in July 2020 to advise that she could not have the gas safety check carried out until September 2020. The resident relayed that this had been “noted and agreed” and quoted a reference number for this work order. She advised that an appointment for the gas safety check had been made for 5 September 2020 “weeks ago” prior to the letter of 28 August 2020 being issued.
8. The resident added that she did not want to be told what her neighbours were doing and said that, from her interactions with her neighbours, she had gathered that most had not had the gas safety check yet. She said that it did not “need to be blatantly deceptive to get the message across”. The resident confirmed that she wanted to raise a complaint as she found the letter to be “threatening” and was “harassment”.
9. On 8 September 2020, the landlord emailed the resident to request a copy of the letter which she was complaining about in order to log her complaint officially. She emailed this letter to the landlord later that day.
10. The landlord acknowledged the resident’s complaint by email on 9 November 2020. It informed her that its response “may take longer than usual” due to the diversion of its resources during the corona virus pandemic.
11. The landlord sent a further acknowledgement to the resident on 3 December 2020 in which it advised that it would provide her with its written response by 5 January 2021.
12. On 6 January 2021, the resident emailed the landlord to ask if her complaint had been escalated to the final stage as its deadline for providing the stage one complaint response had not been met. She referred to communication she had received which advised her that her complaint had been “assigned to the incorrect department” and questioned how this had occurred. The resident added that she had attended court on the date the landlord had specified, with her gas safety check certificate, and noted that the landlord had not attended and the court date had not been cancelled.
13. The landlord issued a final stage complaint response to the resident on 22 March 2021 in which it acknowledged that it had not handled the complaint in line with its procedure and apologised for this. It noted that it had delayed logging and responding to her complaint at both stages of its internal process. In recognition of this, the landlord offered £75 compensation to the resident.
14. The landlord stressed the importance of the annual gas safety check and that it was a statutory requirement. It said that its contractor had issued three letters to the resident prior to the letter which mentioned court action. The landlord said that it was sorry that that she did not agree with the tone of the letters it had sent but explained that this reflected the importance and safety implications in carrying out the gas safety check. It said that, despite that an appointment having been booked for the gas safety check, “the letter process needed to continue until the service had been completed” as it needed to evidence that it had made attempts to arrange the safety check.  

Assessment and findings

The landlord’s communication to the resident about its annual gas safety check

15. The landlord has a legal obligation to carry out an annual gas safety inspection, which is confirmed by its repairs manual, above at point 2. Therefore, it was reasonable for it to contact the resident to arrange a suitable appointment for this. However, it is not disputed that the resident made an appointment for the landlord to carry out the gas safety check on 5 September 2020 sometime prior to it issuing its letter of 28 August 2020 which threatened to obtain a warrant to gain access to the property.
16. It was, therefore, unreasonable for the landlord to notify the resident of possible legal action to obtain access to the property while it had an outstanding appointment to carry out the gas safety check. The letter it sent on 28 August 2020 made no acknowledgement that there was an appointment booked for the work to be carried out. This was likely to have caused unnecessary distress to the resident despite her making efforts to comply with the landlord’s statutory requirement. The landlord said in its final stage complaint response that “the letter process needed to continue until the service had been completed” so that it could evidence that it had attempted to carry out the gas safety check. This was an unreasonable explanation as there was no evidence that the resident had unreasonably delayed or denied access to the property to carry out the necessary inspection. As an appointment had already been arranged, there was no need to continue to send letters unless the appointment was missed.
17. Therefore, it was unreasonable for the landlord to write to the resident to inform her of impending legal action without acknowledging that it had an appointment in place to carry out the gas safety check. This represents a failure on the landlord’s part as it did not fully acknowledge the situation when communicating with the resident and was likely to have caused distress to her. Therefore, compensation of £250 should be paid to her in recognition of this. This is in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance (published on our website) which recommends awards in this range where there has been “considerable service failure or maladministration, but there may be no permanent impact on the complainant.”

The landlord’s handling of the associated complaint

18. In its final stage complaint response, the landlord acknowledged that it had not followed its complaints procedure in handling the resident’s complaint. She raised her stage one complaint on 4 September 2020 and no stage one complaint response was issued before she requested that her complaint be escalated to the final stage on 6 January 2021, 85 working days later.
19. There was also a significant delay from 6 January 2021 until the landlord issued its final response to the resident on 22 March 2021 of 53 working days. Although there is no timeframe specified for issuing a final stage complaint response in the landlord’s complaints policy, above at point 3, this was an unreasonable delay.
20. The delay in the landlord’s response was likely to have added to the resident’s distress and inconvenience. Furthermore, while the landlord noted the resident’s comments about attending court to find the landlord absent, it did not address this point in its final stage complaint response. While its complaints policy states that it may not consider new issues at the final stage of its complaints procedure, it should have acknowledged her concerns and explained the situation, particularly because this issue was directly linked to the original complaint about the landlord threatening to take court action against the resident.
21. The landlord offered £75 compensation to the resident for its acknowledged failures in handling her complaint. This was reasonable for the delays in the complaints process, but it is not adequate taking into account the failure to fully address the resident’s concerns or provide redress for the distress caused by the threat of court action. The landlord should therefore offer additional compensation in view of these issues, as set out below.
22. Determination (decision)
23. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in its communication to the resident about its annual gas safety check.
24. There was service failure in the landlord’s handling of the associated complaint.

Reasons

25. The landlord did not acknowledge that the resident had a prior appointment made to carry out the annual gas safety check when it informed her that it would be considering legal action to gain access to her property. This was likely to have caused considerable distress to the resident. The resident experienced further distress when the landlord did not cancel the court date or attend the hearing when the gas check had already been carried out.
26. Although the landlord acknowledged some failures in complaint handling and offered compensation for these, it did not fully address the matter or the court action or offer appropriate compensation in view of this.

Orders

27. Within 28 days, the landlord is to pay the resident £400 compensation, comprised of:

a. £250 for any distress and inconvenience caused by its failure in communication with the resident about the annual gas safety check.

b. a further £75 compensation for any distress and inconvenience caused by errors in its complaint handling (bringing the total compensation for complaint handling to £150 taking into account the £75 offered by the landlord previously).

Recommendations

It is recommended that the landlord reviews its process for arranging gas safety checks and considers not writing to residents advising of possible court action if an appointment has been booked for the gas check and ensuring that any court action is cancelled if the gas check has already gone ahead.